


Civilisation

by Symbolic



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - School, Alternate Universe - Teachers, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:22:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Symbolic/pseuds/Symbolic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I guess I kind of subscribe to the idea of ‘those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach’. I can’t really do anything other than read so I decided to teach…” He trails off, and then looks up. There’s a pause, and Grantaire realises with a growing sense of horror that for someone who is contractually obliged to be eloquent, he’s stuck his fucking foot in it. </p><p>“You’re wrong.” </p><p>It’s the first time that Enjolras has spoken all dinner, and it makes them all jump.</p><p>Or: Grantaire and Enjolras have just started their first year of teaching in a run-down inner London comprehensive. Grantaire isn't sure what to do when, on top of having to deal with students throwing chairs at him, he realises that he's in danger of becoming desperately in love with his new colleague.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Civilisation

**Author's Note:**

> Teach-First is a real organization that takes students from top universities in the UK, gives them six weeks of training, and then sends them straight into the toughest schools in the country to learn on the job. If you're interested, I recommend watching the documentary 'Tough Young Teachers' on the BBC.
> 
> British senior school starts at eleven for all children, (Year Seven) and often goes right up until eighteen (Upper Sixth or Year 13).

**September**

Grantaire isn’t sure how he feels about school, has never been sure of how he feels about school. On one hand, school was always an oasis of learning and knowledge and heated arguments about the nature of Satan in _‘Paradise Lost’._ On the other hand, school was filled with, well, with the kind of people that didn’t take kindly to his pale, bony looks and his inability to participate in the kind of behaviour that branded you a ‘lad’.

So on the first day back at school, Grantaire is nervous. It’s dark outside, because even though it’s the third of September and the sun rises early, he has got up even earlier to get ready. Although, he notes with a wry smile as he pulls and twists his tie in the mirror, trying to get it to lie flat, apparently he is the last to leave the house.

On the car ride on the way over, he fiddles with the shitty stereo in his car, trying to make it play something, _anything_ that isn’t static white noise, and ends up on a radio programme that is discussing a religious thought for the day. Grantaire isn’t really religious – he isn’t a die-hard atheist either, he just thinks that it’s impossible to know what’s out there either way, and he gets depressed when he tries – but today it’s quite comforting in the emptiness and the blackness of the roads. There aren’t any stars, because there are never any stars this far into the city, but lights are just starting to appear in the houses that line the roads, and they too are comforting in their own sort of way. Regardless of how Grantaire feels today, life will go on for everyone around him.

He pulls up into the car park of the school, and his car immediately veers into one of the pot holes that have developed in the cracked tarmac. A few minutes later and he has parked in a bay – wonkily, with half of the front sticking out, but he can’t be bothered to try and straighten it, not when he knows that he’s terrible at manoeuvres in any case.

Grantaire grabs his sensible briefcase and strides across the empty space towards the door of the school. The sun is coming up, and the place will be filled with voices in just over an hour. He shudders at the thought, and then steels himself, walking into the building looking like a man with a purpose.

His classroom is big, which he supposes is a good thing, and has a view onto a scrubby patch of ground with a few bushes clumped in the centre which Grantaire would swear on his own mother are full of cigarette butts and the ends of joints. The walls are covered with brightly coloured pin boards with titles like ‘Grammar is fun!’ and ‘Our Short Stories’ cut out in that horrible rounded font that seems to all adults to have connotations of ‘fun’ and ‘friendly’. Adults – Grantaire grins – isn’t he supposed to be one of them now?

The door opens behind him and he hears someone enter with a confident step. Grantaire turns from where he is lounging on his desk at the front of the room, and sees another man, youngish, blonde, dressed in the same suit and tie combination. Grantaire can’t help but notice with a pang that whilst his own relatively cheap suit sits awkwardly, and shows off a good inch of his ankle more than it’s supposed to, the other man wears his with the kind of ease that will make all the teenaged girls swoon.

“Enjolras,” the man introduces himself with a faint smile and a firm handshake.

“Grantaire” he replies, shaking back.

“Teach-First too? I suppose we’ll be living together.”

Grantaire’s insides decide to start imitating the dance of the Seven Veils. He tries not to let his discomfort show on his face – if he can’t be friendly and assertive with another trainee, then he’ll have an aneurism when he’s faced with a class full of brawling, squalling fourteen-year-olds.

“Yeah, I suppose we will,” he replies, and fiddles with the stapler by the side of his desk. There’s a slight pause, and then he goes on, “so what are you teaching?”

“History and politics… but only the GCSE and A-level classes, so I’m hoping they won’t be too bad. They will have chosen my subject after all.”

The bell rings loudly and both of them jump, before laughing together slightly uneasily.

“I guess,” says Grantaire with a sense of dread as he starts to hear the noise of hundreds of children pouring into the building, “we’ll have to get used to that noise again.”

“I’m sure we will.” Enjolras turns and walks away. He’s at the door before he turns again. “Well, good luck.”

 ---

His first encounter, to Grantaire’s relief, is fine. He’s been put in charge of a form of Year Sevens, the youngest year, and they are all as new to the school as Grantaire is, so he doesn’t have to live up to any expectations or preconceptions. All the students look nervous as he ushers them into the classroom and hands out the planners that he can _predict_ will promptly be lost within three days.

Standing at the front of the class, he introduces himself as Mr Grantaire – he’s gone by just his last name for so long now that it feels indescribably weird placing a Mr before it – and when they all struggle with the French pronunciation, he tells them that they can just call him Mr R.

They aren’t the only ones struggling with names, either. Grantaire stumbles through the class register, full of wonderful and complex names like Aishwarya and Koulovasilopolous that he hasn’t got a hope in hell of getting right first time. There are a few titters as he stutters on Siobhan, but he laughs along with them because it _is_ quite funny really. The bell for the first period goes soon after that and they all flock out, looking about as nervous as he feels.

First period is harder, because he’s teaching Year Nines, and the class is split between the handful of students who are bored with their work because they are more than capable of starting their GCSE’s already, and the majority of students who are bored with their work because they can’t be bothered to be interested.

Grantaire feels better once he’s got his book in hand, though. He loves books, he loves writing, and he always has done. His home life has always been fine – his parents are nice, his dad’s an electrician and his mum was a receptionist – but it’s never been exciting, living in a small suburban patch of countryside surrounded by identical-looking houses. It’s a cliché that Grantaire has always been aware of, but reading is a form of escapism that is all-too easy for him to become addicted to, just like cigarettes. The book he’s chosen, _‘My Family and Other Animals’,_ is fairly basic, but it’s hilarious, and he is praying that the class will humour him long enough to let themselves laugh.

He’s lucky, for the second time that day, because his reading aloud of the text is comical and dramatic enough to grab most of the class’s attention, whilst the ones who remain stubbornly uninterested fidget with their mobile phones and mostly remain passive. At the end of the hour, when he’s started to encourage some of the keener students to have a go at reading a few pages aloud – and they’re mostly terrible, but he concedes that practicing is the only way that they’ll improve – the class troop out with only minimum fuss.

Grantaire checks his time table and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that he has the rest of the time up until lunch free. When he was at school, they would all complain about how tiring it was being a student, but he had never considered how fucking _exhausting_ teaching was. Grantaire retreats to the safety of the staff room – which is fucking weird now he thinks about it, that the staff room is his domain when only a few short years ago it was an imaginary place that he and his peers could only speculate wildly about.

It’s entertaining to see that a lot of the speculations are right. The room is filled with clusters of people that evoke all-too-familiar images of ‘Mean Girls’. Grantaire stands awkwardly by the door, squinting at the groups, trying to work out where he best belongs.

“Welcome to the jungle.”

Grantaire turns and sees another man, with a wide friendly face and an impressive afro. The man cracks a grin, and slaps a hand down on Grantaire’s shoulder.

“I’m Courfeyrac, and you must be Grantaire.”

The man gestures around at the room, crowding closer to Grantaire, and muttering in his ear. His enthusiasm is palpable.

“Over there are the sports teachers. They like to get competitive with their protein shakes and diets – and _never_ get into a drinking competition with them. Those are the arts teachers. Nobody understands the majority of what they talk about, and we’re pretty sure that they get high on paint pot fumes before school starts every day. Then you’ve got the disciplinarians, the workaholics, the ‘how-did-I-end-up-here’s, the ‘make-a-difference’s and then you’ve got us, the greatest people you’ll ever meet.”

Courfeyrac steers him over to a small bunch of people sitting by a window, all clutching cups of coffee like it’s a lifesaving raft. Grantaire clocks a man sitting calmly holding an impressively organised folder, a dark-ish skinned woman who looks as uneasy as he feels, and Enjolras. He nods his head in recognition and sits down, learning quickly that the calm guy is Combeferre, and the woman is Éponine.

Courfeyrac is lounging in a decrepit blue chair that has the sponge stuffing falling out, but even in that casual position Grantaire can sense his energy. “The best thing is that we’re all sharing a house this year!” Courfeyrac is telling him, gesturing with his hands.

During the course of the break, Grantaire discovers that Combeferre and Courfeyrac are in their second year of Teach-First, and that Éponine is a determined maths and economics teacher. Enjolras mostly remains quiet, watching the others with quiet scrutiny. When the bell goes, he gets up and leaves without a goodbye. Courfeyrac watches him go, and then turns to Grantaire.

“I’m pretty sure he went to boarding school, so this is probably a culture shock for him.”

Later, when the staff room is empty and Grantaire is going over his lesson plan for the Year Elevens, he thinks back on Enjolras. If he really did go to a boarding school then Courfeyrac is right, the Phillip Mills School is going to be a complete contrast – it’s renowned for being a disaster of a school, located in the depths of central London and filled with students for whom the reality of life is one filled with monetary struggles and unstable families. It’s for this reason, Grantaire knows, that he has been sent here – Teach First as a charity is committed to sending the best and brightest of university graduates to teach in schools like Phillip Mills in an effort to inspire and improve the situation. Grantaire had laughed himself silly the first time his tutor had suggested that he apply for the scheme – there was no way that he qualified as ‘the best and the brightest’, let alone that he was able to deal with the kind of student who threw chairs at their teacher. Upon reflection, though, he had realised that there was very little that a degree in English Literature qualified him for, regardless of his First or the prestige of his university, and had reluctantly submitted an application, half-hoping that it would be rejected and that he could have a go at journalism, as had been his original plan. To Grantaire’s surprise, he had got a place, and after only a few weeks of training, here he was. Here he was.

\----

That night the occupants of the house all congregate in the kitchen to discuss the first day. The two second year trainees seem to have already formed a camaraderie with Éponine, who must have arrived early enough last night to catch them before they went to bed, whilst Enjolras seems to have gotten in late, like Grantaire himself.

The conversation flows fairly easy between the five of them, and there is a stash of chilled beers in the fridge for which Grantaire is grateful. Over a delicious pasta cooked by Courfeyrac – whose enthusiasm doesn’t seem to have been dimmed by a twelve hour day at the school, something that Grantaire can only admire in him – the conversation turns to their motivations for teaching.

“I don’t know, I guess that it was good teachers who helped me when I was going through a rough patch, and who really inspired me to have a go and apply to uni in the first place.” Éponine shrugs, and takes a swig of beer from the bottle. Grantaire likes her, liked the way that she brushed off Combeferre’s offer of a glass with a cool look, and he thinks that there is no way that even the unruliest of her students will be able to pull the wool over her eyes.

Combeferre is looking at her with a measured gaze, with a hint of a smile playing around his mouth. “I always knew I was going to be a teacher. When the supply teacher didn’t turn up one day in biology, I took over and gave a lecture on different moth species. I must have only been about thirteen but I liked telling people about things I was interested in. Although,” Combeferre gives a mournful grin, “upon reflection I’m not sure my contemporaries were that interested in moth speciation. I got called ‘Mr Combeferre’ for about three years afterward.”

Courfeyrac cuts in, grinning. “I just like helping people, I mean, I like cheering people up and making them enthusiastic about something. The feeling when one of your student shows an interest is _amazing_ , I mean, you just end up thinking, ‘I did this, I’ve helped you’.”

Combeferre and Éponine make noises of agreement, and Grantaire can’t help but notice that Enjolras has, once again, remained mostly silent. The man, he thinks, is an enigma.

His concentration has meant that he’s missed the question directed at him, and it takes a sharp elbow in the ribs from Éponine to call him back to attention. He looks up at the interested faces, and mentally kicks himself, because he’s lost friends before because of his protracted periods of zoning-out, and he doesn’t want his house mates for the foreseeable future to think badly of him.

“Sorry? I didn’t hear you,” he mumbles, twizzling pasta around his fork.

“We were just wondering, what made you decide to be a teacher?  Are you a ‘make-a-difference-er’?” Combeferre asks with a kindly flash of his glasses.

Grantaire pauses for a bit. “No not really… I mean, I’m not sure how much difference we’re really going to make to these teenagers lives, I mean, for a lot of them, their problems go way beyond school and lessons. I guess I kind of subscribe to the idea of ‘those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach’. I can’t really do anything other than read so I decided to teach…” He trails off, and then looks up. There’s a pause, and Grantaire realises with a growing sense of horror that for someone who is contractually obliged to be eloquent, he’s stuck his fucking foot in it. “Not that you guys can’t ‘do’, I’m sure you could do anything you wanted, but I can’t, so…”

“You’re wrong.”

It’s the first time that Enjolras has spoken all dinner, and it makes them all jump.

“Sorry?”

Enjolras leans forward, and as his blonde hair catches the light, Grantaire thinks that it is just unfair for a teacher to be this hot.

“You’re wrong. Not about us being able to do anything that we want – you’re right, I’m sure we all could. I’m sure you could too, but I don’t think that there’s anything more worthy than teaching.” He pauses to take a pull of beer, and instead of concentrating on his words, Grantaire’s eyes are drawn to the way his lips wrap perfectly around the green neck of the bottle. Enjolras places the bottle down with more force than is perhaps strictly necessary and goes on. “You said that we won’t make a difference to these children’s lives, but we _will._ School is the most important element of their life right now, and an education is the most important tool we can give them to help them effect change. We can, and we _will,_ help them to turn their lives around and make the most of themselves.”

Grantaire stares idly at him and thinks that it’s a shame that someone so beautiful is so deluded.

“You think that _school_ is the most important element of their lives? Seriously?” he replies with more vigour than he’s felt all day. It’s good to feel like he’s on solid ground again. “Some of these children have parents in jail, others have parents going through divorces, and some of these children have to assume the fucking role of _carer_ for their parents… I honestly think that learning how to work out the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle or the history of the industrial revolution isn’t their top priority right now.”

Enjolras’ face is alight with revolutionary fervour. “You can’t honestly think that, Grantaire. Why, then, are you here? Why on earth would you apply to do _this_ job?”

Grantaire slumps back, feeling defeated. “I’ve already told you. I can’t do anything else, and I need the money. Is that an adequate enough reason for you?”

The pair are distracted from their argument by Combeferre loudly clanking the plates and talking to Éponine at top volume over by the sink. In the intensity of their discussion, the pair have missed everyone else leaving the table, and Grantaire, thankful for the out, jumps up to help with the washing up.

Enjolras leaves to go to bed soon afterward and Grantaire only stays downstairs long enough to have a cigarette outside the backdoor, an activity which Éponine joins him in, before he too heads upstairs.

\----

The days rush by quickly after that, all blurring into one indistinguishable mess of tiredness and nervousness and books. Grantaire is still unsure as a teacher, just as tense and jumpy every time a new class walks into his classroom and sits down and _looks_ at him like he’s supposed to know what he’s doing, but at least he knows that somehow, he can do it, that he can struggle through.

There are tricky patches here and there – although his form warms to him, and to each other, and the chatter in the mornings grows in volume each day, older years clearly view him with suspicion. There’s a class of Year Elevens who are obviously just _waiting_ for him to fuck up, whilst the bottom set of Year Eight are so indescribably bad at spelling and grammar that Grantaire wonders if they were even taught English last year. After the third class with them, when he asks them to write a short paragraph about something they’re interested in, and receives back one particular exercise book where the student has misspelt ‘ _boat_ ’ as ‘ _bote_ ’ fifteen times, he cracks on his rule of not smoking during the school break, and heads outside during his next free period.

To his surprise, when he rounds the corner to the area where he has been assured by Courfeyrac the students can’t go, Enjolras is already sitting on the curb between the pavement and tarmac.

“You’ll get your suit ruined,” Grantaire blurts stupidly, because that’s all he can think right now. He and Enjolras haven’t really spoken since their argument – although the other four share one lift into work in the mornings, Grantaire prefers to drive alone, relishing the single peaceful moment of his day, whilst in the house they edge round each other without acknowledging that they’re doing so. He isn’t sure if he can face having another show- down now, not when he’s _so_ tired, and anyway, it’s, true – and Enjolras’ suit is nicer than it has any right to be, would fit in in an environment of city stockbrokers and traders, but not in this dilapidated school.

Enjolras looks up, and smiles weakly. He isn’t smoking, but he doesn’t flinch when Grantaire, biting the bullet and refusing to be driven off, walks over and sits down next to him, cigarette between his lips and a lighter in his hand. They sit there for a few seconds in silence, Grantaire watching the smoke as it dissipates from his lips into the air, before Enjolras speaks.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?”

“Sorry?” Grantaire replies, not sure if he’s heard correctly, and then, “why are you here?”

Enjolras leans back onto his arms and sighs. There’s another pause.

“It’s just so _hard_ when they don’t care!” Enjolras finally explodes with, and Grantaire can sense that this is the release of something that has been building up in his mind for a good while now. “I mean, they picked the subject, they should be willing to do their own research and discover things for themselves, but they expect me to spoon-feed them everything, and when I don’t, they just don’t bother doing the work!”

Grantaire laughs, and Enjolras shoots him a look.

“Look, Enjolras, don’t get yourself worked up about it. They’re teenagers, of course they’re going to be lazy, and of course they’re going to expect you to do all of their work for them. Didn’t you mess about a bit and procrastinate when you were at school?” he asks, a faint smile still playing across his lips.

Enjolras looks blank. “No,” he says, without any hint of guile or deceit. _Of course,_ Grantaire thinks, _Enjolras isn’t the type to play snake on his phone during a lesson._ He doesn’t say this, however, and thinks carefully about how to phrase his advice to the other man.

“If I were you, make your life easier and just teach them step by step,” he says finally, his face serious now. “Have some patience, and don’t expect all of them to excel all at once, because they won’t. Some of them will have picked your subject, some of them will have stabbed their pen on the options sheet and come up with it, and some will have been reluctantly pushed into it by their parents. So give them some slack, and it will all get a lot better.”

Enjolras doesn’t look like he’s sure what to say to this for a moment, his face wary, before something seems to click within him, and he exhales.

“Thanks,” he says, and swivels his body so it fully faces Grantaire’s. “I’ll try.” He holds out a hand, which Grantaire stares at stupidly for a moment, before Enjolras speaks again. “Truce?” he says, and Grantaire throws the ashy stub of his cigarette onto the tarmac (something that Enjolras studiously does not wince at) before grasping his hand and shaking it. Truce.

\----

Now that the tension in the house has been diffused, the difference is remarkable, because with the handshake, some unspoken rule not to discuss work at home has been made between Grantaire and Enjolras, and the other three seem to have willingly adopted it as well. The conversation over dinner now ranges wildly, from literature to art to Courfeyrac’s hijinks at university. Although Enjolras and Grantaire still seem to end up arguing more than they agree, the arguing feels less loaded than it was on the first night, and they always seem to part on friendly terms, if not actually friends yet.

This all gives Grantaire more time to worry about his classes. The class of Year Elevens has developed into downright anarchy as the novelty of school after the long summer break has worn off, and the public exams of the next summer are just far enough away as to seem non-existent. In his final lesson of September with them, one particular student throws a chair at Grantaire when he tries to tell them off for defacing other student’s planners with crude and misogynistic slogans when he should be following the reading of _‘Twelfth Night’._ After the chair is thrown, all semblance of Grantaire’s control is lost, and he has to call the deputy head in to calm them down and give them all detentions. Grantaire doesn’t miss the fact that the deputy head gives him a sidelong glance when she walks in, nor the fact that since them he has had noticeably more teachers observing his progress in his classes than he had had previously.

The final week of September finally comes to a close, and as Grantaire drives home through the late afternoon sunshine on Friday, he can’t help have a big smile plastered across his face. Even though half-term is still weeks away, he feels like he’s achieved something by getting through a whole month, and he celebrates by picking up a couple of bottles of slightly-nicer-than-usual wine from Majestic before he arrives at the house, so that he can share them with his housemates.

That night, they all eat outside, making the most of a last warm evening before cold October nights kick in. As he laughs at a particularly droll impression of Boris Johnson from Éponine, his eyes connect with Enjolras across the table. Enjolras inclines his head slightly, before raising his glass to the assembled group – though Grantaire can’t help but feel that it is being raised solely to him.

“To the first month.” Enjolras says, and they all echo him, clinking glasses.

“To the first month.”  

**Author's Note:**

> All constructive criticism is welcome!


End file.
